Differentiating B40, M40 and T40 Income Groups in Malaysia

If you’ve been a Malaysian at home this past pandemic, you might’ve heard of the “B40”, “M40” and “T20” income groups frequently.

Not a term that we’ve been used to at most, it can come as unfamiliar for most who are just coming out into the “adulting” scene. So, what do they mean? It’s basically just an income group that is used to differentiate the type of income earners.

B40 is the bottom 40% of earners, M40 being the middle 40% and T20 being the top 20% with the highest income or cashflow. These groups are later broken into tiers such as B1, B2, B3 and so on.

With previous income thresholds, Malaysians were within B40 if their median household income was RM3,000. An earning of RM6,276 were considered M40 while RM13,149 lands you in T20; in 2019, these income classifications were revised to reflect inflation, rising cost of living and household size etc.

Classifications of B40, M40 and T20 today

T20

T2: RM15,040 <

T1: RM10,961 – RM15,039

M40

M4: RM8,700 – RM10,959

M3: RM7,110 – RM8,699

M2: RM5,880 – RM7,099

M1: RM4,850 – RM5,879

B40

B4: RM3,970 – RM4,849

B3: RM3,170 – RM3,969

B2: RM2,501 – RM3,169

B1: RM2,500

So, where do you land in the classification today? What are the chances of you being able to jump from one socio-economic group to the other?

According to Khazanah Research Institute, a 2016 report suggest that Malaysians have been socially mobile across generations born between 1945/1960 and 1975/1990.

Only 19% of a child’s income was associated with their parents’; although, this doesn’t mean upwards mobility. Among those surveyed, almost 3 in 4 of children born to parents in the bottom earnings quintile moved up, while 2 in 3 born into the top earnings quintile moved down.

The widening income gaps

For starters, Khazanah has also stated that the household income in Malaysia has increased from 1970 to 2018. Malaysia’s Gini coefficient (a measurement used to represent income inequality – a higher number means that the income gap is larger) fell from 0.513 to 0.399.

This shows that the household income has risen while income inequality has went down.

The reason to why we still complain about not having enough is simply due to the relative gap and absolute gap:

• A low-income household earning RM1,000 last year triples their income to RM3,000 this year
• A high-income household earning RM10,000 last year doubles their income to RM20,000 this year

Because of this absolute gap in earning differences, it doesn’t feel like inequality has improved at all.

Covid-19

Last year, one in three employees reported a salary deduction of more than 30% while unemployment rate stands at 4.6% in April 2021, higher than the 5.3% of May 2020.

The various movement control orders didn’t help with this at all as unemployment rates are expected to rise again; B40 and M40 households will also be more vulnerable to loss of employment when compared with T20 households.

Many Malaysians area also being forced to move into lower categories, that much that Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin is contemplating an expansion of B40 into a B50 category. 10% of the T20 group has also slid into becoming middle-income earners.

The Economic Action Council (EAC) also announced that 600,000 M40 households, or 8% of Malaysian households have slipped into the B40 category due to the pandemic.

With more expected to experience the declines, there have been calls to rethink these B40, M40 and T20 classifications altogether.

Making the right decisions

Those within the B40 group are often to be most concerned over long-term debt from various loans. Added with recent struggles, this puts many beyond the reach of affordable options.

Industry experts suggest that long-term loans could be the key to relieving this financial pressure.

Finsource Solution offers five loans with financing tenures of up to 10 years.

With a clean loan, property loan, 2 in 1 financing, gap financing and invoice financing suited to meet your financial needs, our loan advisors are ready for your questions 24/7, contact us today to learn more!

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